IN this piece I will focus on government in Africa. In a subsequent piece I will address the implications of the disquisition on government for governance in Africa.

IN Nigeria, allegations of corruption have in recent past placed the role of election tribunal in jeopardy. Election petitions, just like the ordinary day-to-day civil cases, are intended to be dealt with by tribunals consistently, fairly without bias or partiality.

The membership of an association such as a Nation State implies an inherent social contract between the individual and a geopolitical organ of Administration.

Throughout February I was in Sudan for the CAF Nations Cup Championship. On the fabled fourteenth of that month, I got a mail from Ikeddy Isiguzo, who to you, is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of Vanguard Group of Newspapers.

WITH barely two weeks to go to the presidential election of April 9, 2011, it’s time to begin facing reality. This article is not meant to canvass votes for anybody. It is a candid attempt to convey what I think will happen given the trends observed from the campaigns.

Please, turn off that radio. I’m tired of all these campaign jingles,” said this mother to her teenage undergraduate daughter.

Earlier this year, February 7, precisely, I had gone to speak at the University of Houston, Texas. The English and History Departments, the Houston Fund, and the good folks at the Voices Beyond Boundaries in Houston had made it possible for my visit to talk on a subject I called “Imagined and Transitional nations: matters arising in African Literature” and give readings from my collection of poems, The Horsemen & Other Poems. In the audience, both at the university and later that evening at the reading at the Houston Institute for Culture was a group of Nigerians.

The term ‘democracy’ was originally ‘demos’ and ‘krasi’; Greek for ‘people’ and ‘rule’ -or ‘rule of the people’. But over time, it has etymologically evolved to mean different things to different people. In our own part of the world, the transformation is breathtaking.

Recent media reports that officials of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), are under pressure to do wrong should be a source of worry to many people, especially at this eve of general elections.

Nigeria now counts the days to the general elections. The parties are now on the hustings. And, they are criss-crossing the cardinal points asking for votes. Some of them are still busy canvassing new alliances.
PDP would have been very sure if their ranks had been what they should. Their ranks have been broken on account of their not keeping their words.

Long before the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, was formed after another Arab-Israeli War, the International Oil Companies, IOC, called the “Sisters”, dictated the price of crude oil globally. On the eve of the creation of OPEC, it was three cents a barrel.

According to Sugata Masaaki, an expert in the religion, “Shinto is so woven into the fabric of Japanese daily life that people are barely aware of its existence. To the Japanese, it is less a religion than an unobtrusive environmental fixture, like the air they breathe.”

Yes, we don’t have those songs any more in Lagos as we used to have them during elections. Nor from the other parts of the country either, although it might not have been part of the traditions of many other areas of the country.

Two reports thrilled me this week.
The first was from Simon Kalika. It was on their perception of what Eagles should look like on the field. The second was from his boss Samson Siasia emphasising what Kalika had said.

YOU might recall that the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF), the PDP faction that is led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma, presented Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the “Northern Consensus Candidate” at the party’s primary in January. You might also be aware that when Atiku failed to secure the PDP nomination, President Jonathan did not behave like an arrogant victor.